England narrowly beat Scotland in their first meeting in 14 years thanks to Ricky Lambert on his debut. With Five minutes gone, Leighton Baines put in a cross, which Wayne Rooney did not side foot properly and it went wide. Scotland took the lead in the 10th minute. From a corner kick the ball fell to James Morrison, who’s shot went through a sea of bodies and beat the England keeper, Joe Hart. Hart will be disappointed that he did not push the shot round the post. He got his hand on the ball but it hit his elbow and went in.

Arsenal have confirmed the sale of Côte d'Ivoire forward Gervinho to Roma. The 26-year-old found first-team football hard to come by last season and was limited to mostly appearing from the bench for the Gunners. Manager Arsene Wenger signed Gervinho from Lille in 2011 but he was only able to find the back of the net on four occasions in his first campaign at the Emirates Stadium and added seven last term.

The official match schedule for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Canada 2014 was unveiled today at the City Hall of Montreal just less than one year before the start of the competition. The opening match with hosts Canada will take place on 5 August 2014 at the National Soccer Stadium in Toronto. The final two matches, both the match for third place and the final, will take place in the famous Olympic Stadium of Montreal on 24 August. The three-week competition will feature 16 teams and 32 matches from the opener through to the final.

New-signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit a hat-trick as UEFA Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund kicked off their Bundesliga season with an emphatic 4-0 win at Augsburg on Saturday. With defending champions Bayern Munich, under new coach Pep Guardiola, having already enjoyed a 3-1 win at home to Borussia Moenchengladbach on Friday, 24-year-old Gabon forward Aubameyang showed why Dortmund paid French Cup winners Saint-Etienne €13m for him.

I have been in contact with Blessing Okagbare since 2009 when she was still at UTEP; University of Texas at El-Paso chronicling her progress through interviews and articles about her performances on the track which has been nothing but sensational as well as about her life off the track. Recently Blessing broke the African Record lowering it to 10.79 seconds; a feat that has been a long time coming for her as I had no doubt that among the current crop of African women sprinters, she stood the best chance of vanquishing it. Blessing is a humble and very unassuming athlete who is a very hard worker that does not leave anything to chance despite her natural talent. I say despite because when some individuals realize they do have natural talents to be great in doing something in life they tend to take the lax approach to it, in Blessing’s case, she does not take anything for granted. Blessing has come a long way from a onetime triple jumper, an event which earned her an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas at El Paso to the now current African record holder in the 100 meters for women.

Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia; the Queen of women’s middle distance running showed the world again why she is the undisputable ruler of the 10,000 and 5,000 meters as she showed true grit in the final 500 meters of a grueling race led by Japan’s Hitomi Niiya for the most part. Dibaba started sprinting from the 500 meters mark reminiscent of her surge at the London 2012 Olympics with Kenya’s Gladys Cherono and fellow Ethiopian Belaynesh Ojira hanging close behind her pushing her all the way but with 200 meters to go she separated herself from the two surging away as If she was contesting a 200 meters dash race to finish the race in spectacular form claiming the Gold medal in the 10, 000 meters with a time of 30:43.35.

Edna Kiplagat wins Gold at the World Track & Field Championships in Russia

The 14th Edition of the IAAF World Athletics Championships kicked off very well for the African continent with Africa taking the first Gold at the games as Edna Ngeringwony Kiplagat of Kenya the defending Champion in the Women’s Marathon won in a time of 2hrs:25mins:44seconds (2:25:44) making her the first ever woman to repeat as Marathon Champion at the Games.